This week I am the host of my semi-annual Education Team meeting at my corporate headquarters in New Jersey and I have to say that to be among so many talented and fun ladies who have managed to make a career out of doing something they like is really amazing. I know that many of you might expect that I always need to write about how great the Brother products are I think I can do that and tell you about these ladies at the same time.

Several of the gals started their career working in their home towns in sewing stores. They remember the importance of having a stack of fabrics and threads ready to show a potential customer the latest sewing trick that was the WOW feature to sell a sewing machine. One of them told me that she has this knack of taking a string of words and using them to impress a potential customer. Fast, fun and fashionable is how she looks at taking ready made clothes and re-constructing them with the addition of decorative stitches, new fabric borders or embroidered trims. Here is another that I am sure you will appreciate, “blank is boring.” Can’t argue there, can you? Why not put a Brother PE-750 on your holiday wish list to solve that problem?

Another gal has always worked in marketing for industrial embroidery machines. She is amazed that the “happy homeowner” can actually achieve similar results with a today’s embroidery machines. The Brother PR620, six needle embroidery machine is the perfect product for a person who wants to turn a hobby into a profit center. We actually have another gal who formerly owned her own hair salon but always knew that she wanted to have a career in the sewing field. She took one look at the PR620 and knew that she could turn a lot of people on to the potential of this little profit center.

Others have had careers in banking, teaching, law, product managers, nursing but in the background they were doing silk flower arrangements, clothing alterations, sewing for their home or fashion sewing. Today they can speak with authority about how many different things they can do with the stabilizers that everyone needs to use to achieve the best results when it comes to machine embroidery. I have said it for years….”Even the greatest embroidery machine needs needles, threads and stabilizer for the right results!”

Presentations over the past few days have helped me learn things like:

There are over 20 companies that are selling stabilizers today.

That should tell you how important they are…

The number of layers of stabilizer depends upon the size of the embroidery as well as the number of stitches.

It is okay to float a piece of stabilizer under the hoop as well

Do not attempt to put more than 2 layers of stabilizer in the hoop.

If you feel that you need more, float it beneath

Thread comes in all shapes and sizes

…so do needles, so make sure that you have the right size needle for the job

Brother embroidery machines easily meet and beat the challenge of embroidering over the flat felled seams in jeans.

Don’t forget to use a “jeans” needle for this, the larger size makes penetrating the density of the layers of fabric as easy as slicing butter.

The holiday season seems to shower us with opportunities for embroidering challenging fabrics

Use a topper stabilizer on the top of towels and velvets to keep the “nubbies” from poking through your embroidery. You will be amazed by the difference in finished results when you do this.

If you are embroidering a fabric that may get “hoop burn” when you take it of an embroidery frame, don’t go that way. Instead, put a piece of adhesive stabilizer in the frame and press the fabric against the sticky surface and embroider.

Use the “frame patterns” surrounded with a straight stitch to baste the layers of fabric and stabilizer in the hoop before you embroider.

Put new needles into use on a regular basis.

Look “outside the box” when you are creating. The beautiful handbag above was made by Michelle Gillmartin. She was the gal who had a previous career in hair design. The embroidery on the bag was originally created with blouses in mind. Always up for a challenge, Michelle bought leather and embroidered it before she constructed the handbag. The application of metal and wooden “bling” makes this super bag a one of a kind for sure!

Thank you for the info, the only thing I would comment on why when you print it out you get evrything wasting paper & ink, we don't need the comment printed just the infomation, could you do a printable page in future when you tell us to print it out to keep.

Good point, sylviacross. What I should have said was "print it out on the back of a piece of scrap paper". We've heard from a lot of our community members that it can be helpful to have a printout that they can keep handy, but you're right that, even in so doing, one should still consider applying the "Reduce, Re-use, Recycle" rule.

I really enjoy any tips using the Brother. I have a Brother PR620 so have many questions: 1. How many hours of sewing before you change needles. 2. Do you use different sizes in this machine for different fabrics?